The field of power supply voltage regulation and particularly the field of AC-DC voltage regulation are both generally well-known and include many hundreds and perhaps thousands of different circuit approaches for converting an unregulated AC input voltage to a regulated DC output voltage. Many such regulator circuits may be found, for example, in class 321, subclass 18 of the United States Patent Office search files. These regulator circuits have a wide variety of applications ranging from communication systems to various motor vechile voltage regulator systems.
In some types of AC-DC voltage regulator applications, it is desirable to perform the voltage regulation function at the highest possible conversion efficiency, thus minimizing the heat dissipation within the regulator circuit. Such performance is obviously desirable from the standpoint of extending not only the lifetime of the electrical components in the voltage regulator circuit, but also the lifetime of other heat sensitive components and/or packaging material located nearby. Furthermore, such performance tends to minimize the overall size of the voltage regulator package.